“When you tell the English press that you are pro-free market and then you tell the French that finance is the enemy, you are lying. Lying from morning to night,” he told the crowd.

Sarkozy said he was the only candidate committed to real reform in France. Hollande told a British newspaper on Monday that he would not seek to crack down on the City of London with zealous EU regulations if elected.

He had previously told Socialist supporters that his main challenger in this election was “the world of finance.”